HOW TO PRACTICE

Follow these tips and strategies to make the best use of your practice time!

1. SING EVERYDAY

Commit to short practice sessions, spread across the week.

Depending on your preferences and schedule, you will need to plan to practice during the week. Ideally, you will carve out time to practice for 20-30 minutes at a time, a few times per week. It is perfectly okay to practice only 5 minutes at a time at first. Build up your practice time slowly and steadily from there.

2. SCHEDULE ALONE TIME

Plan for alone time.

Practicing new parts and cementing them in your brain, ears and voice takes time and you must be willing to make mistakes along the way. Carve out alone time so that you can practice freely.

3. CREATE CONVENIENCE

Download your section’s practice tracks and upload them to your phone/whatever device so that they are easily accessible.

You will need to listen to the parts over and over to build them into your muscle memory. Your harmony part must feel instinctual to sing in order for you to freely express yourself at rehearsal and the concert! Have your practice tracks ready and put them on repeat to listen to during your commute to work, when you’re getting ready in the morning, etc.

4. BREAK IT DOWN

Learn your part, a section at a time. Repeat until you know your part and can sing it without mistakes before moving on to the next section.

You may want to start at the most difficult section first (e.g. the chorus). DO NOT sing the song from beginning to end without mastering each section first. Learn your part CORRECTLY so that once you know your whole part, you are practising the right notes and rhythms rather than practising your mistakes.

5. REPETITION IS KEY

Do you think you know your part? Well, practice it again. And again. And again. All of the repertoires must be memorized by the final month of the term. So get workin’! And then repeat your work! And again! And again!

It may become tedious and boring, but this is what it takes to be a solid musician. I promise you will get more out of choir if you can commit to this work. Remember, we sing to serve the music. This duty involves hard work!